For the first time in nearly 20 years, there aren’t enough cadavers in Colorado and Wyoming for this fall’s medical, dental and other health-care students, according to the state Anatomical Board.

Demand is up, donations are down and national body-parts companies are playing a bigger role in the body-donation business, board members said.

The organization is at least 20 bodies shy of the 158 requested by colleges and universities in the two states, said Mike Carry, secretary-treasurer of the anatomical board.

The Anatomical Board collects, embalms and distributes about 140 bodies a year to colleges and universities in Colorado and Wyoming, Carry said.

Students studying to be doctors, dentists, physician assistants and other health professionals dissect the bodies in anatomy courses.

“Textbooks will tell you where things are supposed to be,” said Carry, a professor at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. “But hardly anyone has that typical pattern. One of the things you get out of dissecting is an understanding of variation.”

The opening this fall of an osteopathic medical school in Parker has increased demand by about 25 bodies, Carry said. The board started planning for that last summer by loosening its standards, he said. Obese bodies can be difficult to dissect, and the board was rejecting two or three bodies a month because of weight. The board relaxed that standard to get more bodies.

It didn’t work.

“I don’t recall a body shortage like this as long as I’ve been in charge,” said Richard Krugman, dean of the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and chair of the state Anatomical Board for the past 18 years.

“Not real thrilled”

Richard Drake, the director of anatomy at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and secretary-treasurer of the American Association of Anatomists, said he worries about the recent rise of for-profit organizations, such as Phoenix-based ScienceCare Anatomical.

“We’re not real thrilled with the way some of these groups work,” Drake said. “Their education can be very aggressive.”

Tim Tucker, the general manager of Skyline Funeral Home in Denver, was more blunt. “It’s a rat race now,” he said.

Tucker was approached earlier this year by ScienceCare, which collects fees for preparing and distributing human tissue to scientific researchers in academia and industry around the country.

“They sat me down and said, ‘If you refer people, we’ll cut you a check for $1,000,’ ” Tucker said. “Legal? I’m not sure. Ethically, it goes against my grain.”

John Cover, ScienceCare’s quality-assurance director, said the company does not offer referral fees, which would be illegal.

“We can reimburse them for administrative expense” associated with explaining donation options to families, Cover said. He declined to discuss reimbursement amounts.

Interest increasing

ScienceCare opened a training facility in Aurora last year, said Donna Goyette, the company’s community-relations director.

“I don’t know if there is competition per se,” Goyette said. “But I can tell you that interest in our whole-body donation program is increasing.”

Goyette said she could not estimate the average fees collected by ScienceCare per body, which is private information.

The Anatomical Board charges universities a fee of about $1,800 per body.

The fee will rise between $250 and $350 when the board starts paying for transportation from funeral homes to the board’s morgue.

ScienceCare already covers that cost, which can run up to $1,000, Goyette said.

Kent Nofsinger, an instructor in the University of Colorado Denver biology department, said students in next year’s courses will get to dissect only one gender instead of both.

Mark Frasier, a professor of biomedical science at Colorado State University, is planning to cut undergraduate and graduate class sizes next year, knowing he’ll get just seven of the 14 bodies requested.

Frasier said he hasn’t found any organization except the Anatomical Board that could send him whole bodies.

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